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Game Title: Tales of Symphonia
Platform: Nintendo GameCube
Developer: Namco Tales Studio
Publisher: Namco
Genre: Role Playing
Age Rating: CERO: B,
Release Date: August 29th 2003 (Japan), July 13th 2004 (North America), November 19th 2004 (Europe)
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Game Score: 9.0/10
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Summery:
Tales of Symphonia is a one of a kind RPG for the GameCube that many will like the great characters, battle system and storyline.
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So the PlayStation systems mainly gets all the J-RPG software on main consoles but the GameCube has one J-RPG that competes with Final Fantasy X-2 and draws attention to an RPG franchise that didn't get much popularity in the West. I always known Namco for arcade and console games from Pac-Man, Tekken, Time Crisis, Ridge Racer and Soul Calibur, but they would never be known for working on RPGs. However Tales of Symphonia is their foray into the J-RPG market and it's one of those games that leaves creativity, charm and most importantly playability to be refreshing experience.
Tales of Symphonia follows the story of a young chosen girl named Colette Brunel who is tasked of saving the world that is dying from a exhausted source known as Mana while also an evil organisation known as the Desians are terrorising citizens by unleashing the power of the Exspheres. You take control of her friend Lloyd Irving as it's his job to protect her on her journey and also with his other companions, take revenge for what the Desians have done. The game's opening hours are great but as the story goes on it gets much more complicated as various plot points reveals more about the world and the characters which I cannot spoil here. It takes a lot of time for the story to develop and when you reach the next plot point it becomes hard for first timers to take in at a time. The characters become the highlight of the story, Lloyd isn't always the smart person but often humorous, Colette trips over and apologizes too often, the teacher Raine has affections for Ruins, Zelos falls in love with the ladies and one of my personal favourites Kratos with his methods and reasons for some of his past actions. It's a storyline that gets on well till much later on the game but a great script and voice acting which is good for English Dub standards, considering that it has some rough spots.
Tales of Symphonia greatest strengths with the storyline is the way you can make relationships with the other characters in your party. Over the course of the game you get to make choices which affects some characters, depending on your choices you'll get to experience the story in different ways which is a great feature.
The gameplay in Tales of Symphonia focuses on exploration on the world map, dungeons, towns and enemies to fight like in other RPGs. Towns are resting spots where you purchase new equipment, items and also food which is used to cook meals and replenish your party's health. You can learn cooking recipes by finding Wonder Chefs who are hidden in various towns as strange objects. Inn's allow your party to recover and NPC's will point out some hints to were you need to go next but there's also a series of different sidequests and minigames to take part in which allow you to gain some really good items and and extra stuff that you won't find in the main game.
On the over-world map there's paths that can take you to new areas, reveal a treasure chest or fight against monsters in random encounters. You can find large stones which allows you to use All Range Mode in a particular area you're in. It allows you to ride on Lloyd's pet Noishe and get a larger range of movement and avoid monster encounters easier if you don't feel like fighting them.
As for transport you do a great amount of walking but you'll get access to a boat and eventually a flying vehicle called a Rheaird which allows you fly to areas easily.
In dungeons there are puzzles to solve and treasure to collect. Puzzles range from moving blocks to activating switches. You'll eventually get access to a ring called the Sorcerers Ring which shoots a sparkle of fire which is used to solve puzzles by lighting up fires and burning up objects. You can switch element of the Sorcerers Ring to which can do other actions like spraying water, causing Earthquakes or shoot lightning.
When exploring dungeons or on the over-world you'll engage in random encounters but unlike the turn based RPGs that many gamers would be used to, Tales of Symphonia utilizes a real time battle system which to me is like weapon based fighting games like Samurai Shodown and Soul Calibur. You take 4 party members into battle with each of them having their own type of equipment and skills they use. To my understanding the battle abilities would be later renamed as Artes in future games. In battles the Analog Stick controls your characters movement, the A button uses Normal attacks and repetitively pressing the button pulls of a combo. You can also use the button with the Analog Stick to attack upwards, horizontally or by doing thrusts. The B button uses Artes but you can also set Artes in the Arte menu to different directions on the Analog Stick to pull of combos. X blocks enemies attack which reduce damage taken from enemies, but blocking too many hits or getting hit from behind breaks your guard. The L button delays the magic spell or technique I believe and R allows you to change between different targets that are in the battlefield. The D-Pad allows you to change orders to your party members and on the topic of orders you have a strategy menu which allows you to alter your party members behaviour in battle as well as formation and how much you want a character to use his/her Artes. The Y button brings up the battle menu which you change Artes you have equipped, change tactics, equipment, give orders, escape from a battle if needed or use a recovery item. Using Items in Tales of Symphonia compared to other RPGs, instead of carrying up to 99 of the same item like in Final Fantasy games this game only allows you to carry 20 of the same item and using one requires you to pick out a character to use an item and when you use an item you'll have an Item Time bar appear on the screen telling that you can use another item for about 3 seconds.
When you reach a certain point in the game you'll unlock the Unison Attack which allows you and your party members to link Artes together to create a destructive attack if you imputed the right combinations. Combinations could inculde Lloyd's Tiger Blade with Colette's Pow Hammer for Pow Blade, Lloyd and Kratos' Sonic Thrust for Cross Thrust so it's helpful to be able to experiment with the right combinations to deal greater damage.
Characters can pull off different Artes in battles which consist of melee and magical spells which can be combined together to build up combos to be able to defeat your enemies. After battles characters earn Gald (which is the series form of currency you use to buy stuff in the game) and EXP which upon getting enough Levels your character up and increase his/her power. One thing I really like is that after each battle it replenishes a small portion of your TP bar which is what you use to cast Artes in the game. Tales of Symphonia adds more spin to the J-RPG formula, instead of learning new attacks by increasing a characters level you learn new attacks by fulfilling certain conditions. You'll get access to an Ex Skill menu which allows you to equip 4 different Ex Gems which there are 4 level Ex Gem types which have 4 abilities in each of them. You can equip these gems of any type and ability which can be useful and placing in the right Ex Gems will grant a character an Ex Skill that he/she can use. Ex Gems can also be categorized into 2 types which determine what Arte you'll receive next, there are S type or T type and you can alter the Ex Skill abilities as you see fit as long as you have enough Ex Gems you need.
In addition to the Ex Skills you also Character Titles which are unlocked by fulfilling conditions throughout the whole game. Equipping a title can increase stats upon levelling up your characters depend on which stats that a title boosts. You can also unlock titles which change the characters outfit and these include a Katz suit, a pirate outfit or swimsuits which are all good for amusement. I specially find it funny that in one of the towns you'll visit people react to a party member wearing a swimsuit and the characters don't even feel cold in them whilst exploring other areas.
As for the difficulty of the game Tales of Symphonia introduces the gameplay mechanics throughout the opening hours of the game and if you do need a refresher you can refer to a training manual. The game's manageable battles allow you to chose how you want to engage them but however you still need to do a reasonable amount of grinding to be able survive many of the harder challenges in the game, most notably the boss battles. Some of the beginning enemies are simple to beat but enemies that can cast powerful magic spells to melee combos will often put your skills and character levels to the test. The AI is helpful for the most part but one great feature is that it allows you to plug in extra controllers for players to join in locally, however it's only used for the battles. You can also select which party members you want to take control of which adds further depth to the gameplay, I find this enjoyable as I tend to try out other characters like Kratos or Presea. Overall the gameplay in Tales of Symphonia is very huge and has plenty of depth thanks to it's enjoyable battle system and vast foray of customizable options to take on the game in different ways.
Tales of Symphonia brings the series to a cell-shaded graphics technology with chibi character models with simple face expressions and often times stiff animations. That doesn't mean that many of the characters look quite impressive even the alternative costumes in the game. The environments in the game are amazingly well done with some of them having impressive effects like a dessert town that has sane swirling sand, one town has breezing wind in which parts of the characters clothing and hair wave by the wind. It gives a lot of the game's environments plenty of detail. The game itself runs quite smooth at 50 FPS (60 FPS in NTSC format) till the world map which runs at 25 FPS (30 FPS in NTSC format) and when the game slows down when the action has so much going on screen. Still it's a very smooth and impressive looking game and it compares well with Zelda The Wind Waker, but though not as effective.
The game's soundtrack is impressive with fitting tracks for the game events but one of my all time favourite tracks in this game is Fighting of the Spirit which plays when fighting against the summon spirits. There are also tracks that might leave you in tears when drama moments set in. The sound effects are good and the voice acting which already mentioned is decent for English Dub standards since there are a few rough spots and there's no Japanese Voice track available.
There's a lot to enjoy about Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube, the impressive battle system, great characters and loads of content to unlock and do makes it a one of a kind RPG that's both refreshing and creative. The storyline will take a lot of time to wrap your head over but overall people who enjoy RPGs should really check this game out. It will take about 60 to 80 + Hours of gameplay to complete as well as unlocking all of the optional content then any game available on the GameCube. Be prepared to pay a lot for a second hand copy though as this game doesn't come by so cheaply.
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The Good Points:
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1. Excellent characters that you can get attached to and the affection system works great on the story
2. Fun and engaging battle system which supports 4 players
3. Plenty of customizable skills that you can change and customize to your liking
4. Brilliant Soundtrack that is both unforgettable and tear dropping
5. Plenty of stuff to unlock and do
The Bad Points:
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1. The story development gets a little complicated and the English Dub is rough in tiny spots
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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